


I'm all Cold Iron and Bolts

by OffWhiteWarden (orphan_account)



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Unconnected Drabbles tbh, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:02:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/OffWhiteWarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various ChellDoS drabbles and ficlets. Reuploaded from my old AO3 (So old stuff, but reuploading for sentimental reasons)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. too late for solutions to solve in the setting sun / so run my baby run

Chell knows she should leave. Knows she should accept the freedom she has be granted, to walk amongst the dusty remains of what people before her have made, to touch what is left and dream of what could have been.

Well no, that’s a lie. If she’d have been born to this, been left to live in this endless, golden world, she’d be dead now. Or at least she thinks she would be. Something is the reason she is the only one left, the only one left whispering the ghost of words her kind once used. What would have made her any different? For all that has happened, she owes her that much. But she cannot go back and she knows she can’t. She has found her Eden and now she must stay there. 

She leaves, but it breaks her heart.


	2. i am not proud / i am just taking orders/ i fall to the groud within moments of impact

It’s not normal to be in love with robots. It’s even less normal to be in love with homicidal robots, especially those who have passively aggressively taunted you for years. 

It’s not normal to want it back, want the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the idea that yes, you may die, and by God will it be horrible, but you won’t because then you’ll never be able to get back at her.

It’s not normal to miss the crossed words and crossed guns, bullets almost enough to let Chell feel her name burning on her skin for days, not normal to miss the gut churning something everytime a speaker splutters into life.

It’s not normal at all. But that’s okay.


	3. my heart booms/ at the speed of light

There are a lot of things GLaDOS hates. But Chell isn't one of them.

Chell is so much more than merely a symbol for GLaDOS to hate, more than a mute fighting against what she is here for, more than a danger to all those around her. She is fire and anger incarnate, a chaotic, goalless demon in an orange jumpsuit. She is a monster, a true rebel without a cause. But she is also something more, something softer. She is the little tremble in GLaDOS' voice she hides as best she can, the infuriating disgusting fizz she feels spread in her circuits. 

Hate is only a single star in the messy, forever evolving galaxy of how she feels about Chell.


	4. chapter by chapter/ i'm falling faster

When they finally embrace, as best they can, it's nothing like Chrll has ever felt before. Her skin prickles like she'd brushed a wire by mistake, as she feels metal against her shoulders, even as her stomach clenches from instinct as that solitary glowing light looks directly as her as GLaDOS stretches closer.

She feels a flutter, something so alien, yet so perfect and right, something she is sure she has known before in another life, another time. Swallowing, she moves closer, pulling the robot's head up, the smooth chrome feeling warm against her skin somehow. Time seems to slow, like she's half drowning, as she places lips to GLaDOS, barely brushing the metal for a second.

Breaking away, she smiles. She could get used to this.


	5. i think i maybe think too much/i think this might be it for us

‘Just go.’

Those aren’t the words anybody expects to hear, let alone the being whose speakers it comes from. GLaDOS immediately regrets them.

Not because she wants Chell there for any emotional reasons. It’s for science, using any other person than Chell would mean the results would have different variables, would mean all that testing, being killed, fighting for control of her facility from a literal moron, all of that will be for nothing. Chell is a test subject, a means to an end, a way to find out the truths, to do what she has been programmed to do. 

Except that’s a lie. And GLaDOS knows it the moment she feels some weird, undiscovered part of her clench as she sees the back of that orange jumpsuit for the last time.


	6. i don’t understand your heart/ it’s easier to be apart

GLaDoS starts to think that letting her back might have been a mistake the second fist meets metal. It doesn’t hurt her of course; if anyone the jumpsuited murderer is the one hurt by that action, but it does make things more complicated. Harder to excuse. 

She tires eventually, stops fighting back. Instead she simply stands there, unable to form words or unwilling to say them. Probably because she knows exactly what she’s done to GLaDoS, because she know she’s ruining her streak. And by fighting back she ruins the one excuse GLaDoS had for this other than the truth. 

So GLaDoS stares back, an unforgiving yellow light. It takes a few moments for her to realise why Chell’s fists are clenched just so, why her body is shaking slightly. And it takes a few moments more before she notices the tears welling in her eyes. 

GLaDoS stops, trying to find the will to say what she wants to say, what she needs to say. But she can’t. She is not human, but if she were she would describe it as having a lump in her throat. A lump that makes it impossible to say those two words that would mean turning her back on all that she has built back for herself since Chell left. 

_I’m Sorry_


	7. i guess you're lucky that it's dark now/ and if i like it then we'll stay

Days full with testing seem oddly comforting now. Maybe because she trusts GLaDoS to not try to kill her now, maybe because she’s seen life outside the facility. Or maybe because, compared to her nights, it is far less alien, far less strange. 

Chell’s days are fire and burning rage, but the nights are a different beast. The nights are the feeling of cold metal against Chell’s skin, the threats of new chambers and promises of alternatives that fall from the metaphorical robot lips of Chell’s tormentor as she loops and twirls her metallic body in ways that should be classed as obscene. The nights are cold, calculated controlled rage, the days are hot burning passion. 

Chell falls into the pattern like a fly in a pitcherplant.


End file.
